Inside Konoha, the atmosphere had grown unbearably tense.
Ever since The Ghosts Within Konoha was published, there had been no calming things down.
And as time passed, more and more jōnin, along with shinobi from families both large and small, began gathering of their own accord in front of the Hokage Building.
This time, however, neither the Uchiha nor the Hyūga were among them.
Hyūga Hiashi had naturally seen the report as well, and when he read it, cold sweat had broken out all over his body.
Truthfully, he had wanted to go.
But before he could even leave, the clan elders had stopped him at the gate.
There were indeed Hyūga within Root. A power as exceptional as the Byakugan was never something they would overlook.
But the ones taken into Root had always been branch family members.
Hiashi cared about those people. His younger brother was branch family. Perhaps because of what had happened to him, Hiashi had long since stopped seeing the branch family as tools.
But the elders did not think that way.
In their eyes, Root had taken people from them, and their methods had been disgraceful, yes—but they had only taken branch family members.
As long as the Hyūga main house had not suffered, there was no need for them to break the balance.
"This move is, in essence, taking sides. We wait until the outcome is clear, then choose. That is how the clan remains safest."
Refusing to take sides lightly was one of the reasons the Hyūga had endured for so long.
But Hiashi hated that answer.
Once upon a time, the Hyūga had been willing to act decisively. When Senju and Uchiha fought over the position of First Hokage, the Hyūga had firmly stood with Senju Hashirama.
But ever since Hiruzen Sarutobi took power, they had grown more and more isolated, more and more cut off from the other clans.
And with the internal divide between the main house and the branch house worsening by the day, the Hyūga now seemed capable of little besides listening to Hiruzen.
Even though they were still one of Konoha's strongest clans, Hiashi could feel it clearly.
The clan was rotting.
And yet, he had no way to change any of it.
A clan head was always restrained by the elders, supposedly to prevent him from making disastrous decisions that could drag the clan into ruin.
"But when the clan head is the one being controlled by the elders… who protects the clan head? And who stops the clan from falling into ruin then?"
Hiashi sighed inwardly.
No one could answer him.
And just as he was drowning in that helpless frustration—
inside the Uchiha district, Uchiha Shin, Uchiha Kuu, and a number of core members loyal to them within the Police Force—
along with a number of core members loyal to them within the Police Force—
had already moved swiftly into Police Force headquarters.
Uchiha Fugaku had not come in to report for duty today.
That alone made this a rare opportunity.
Ever since losing one of his eyes, his grip over the clan's authority had become even tighter.
Especially after Uchiha Shin had secured control over two squads, Fugaku had begun exerting an almost suffocating level of control over the last remaining one.
He had also started trying, little by little, to wrest control of those two squads back from Uchiha Shin.
Under normal circumstances, Uchiha Fugaku almost never left Police Force headquarters anymore.
But today was an exception.
Shin, Kuu, and Uchiha Saya's father all knew that Konoha was on the verge of some kind of upheaval. That much had come from Saya.
But what kind of upheaval it would be—or how far it would spread—they had not known.
Now they did.
Hikaru was making his move against Danzō.
Or rather, against Hiruzen Sarutobi.
And they knew exactly who Danzō was.
No one in the Uchiha hated another man more.
Since the days of the Second Hokage, he had never stopped targeting the Uchiha.
Even after he withdrew into the shadows, that had never changed.
A portion of the surveillance on the Uchiha came from the ANBU, yes—but far more of it came from that bastard's Root.
And at every council meeting, any matter involving the Uchiha was met with a vote against them. Not once had he ever allowed the Uchiha to receive the rights that should have been theirs.
And now, it seemed that bastard had gone too far this time.
Hikaru's counterattack, meanwhile, could only be described as terrifying.
On top of that, Uchiha Shin knew a little more than most.
He knew Hikaru had been moving against Orochimaru long before the whole affair exploded.
From Orochimaru to Danzō, every step now seemed to follow a sequence—like everything had always been part of Hikaru's design.
And when he truly thought about it, he arrived at a shocking conclusion.
"Before the Orochimaru incident exploded, he was already pressuring him… even planting rumors in advance. And now it's Danzō again, and once more he's using public opinion to force Sarutobi into a corner. If everything really was planned from the beginning…"
The more he thought about it, the more plausible it seemed.
The way the newspaper had developed had been unnaturally smooth—far too smooth for something this massive, something this sudden.
Its expansion had followed no normal pattern at all.
From beginning to end, it had encountered no meaningful resistance, no serious obstacles.
Saya had once said that the newspaper had started as no more than an offhand idea from Hikaru.
But even that was enough to make Shin's thoughts spiral.
Its development path was too clean. Too deliberate.
From the moment it was introduced with ultra-low pricing to ensure mass adoption, to publishing shocking exclusives from the very start to seize attention, to gradually accepting advertising once it had established itself—
every step seemed carefully designed in advance.
Like someone had laid the whole path out from the start.
"If that's true, then the terrifying thing about the Minister isn't just his strength. It's his mind… perhaps even more than his power."
At that point, Shin forcibly cut off the thought.
The more clearly he saw Hikaru's ability, the more uneasy he became for the future of the Uchiha.
Especially now that he knew he himself could not escape Hikaru's influence—and had no idea what that meant for his descendants either.
Shaking his head, he forced himself not to dwell on it further.
Instead, he looked toward the figure hidden beneath layers of concealment beside him—Uchiha Shin's father, Uchiha Kuu.
"Today, I'm counting on you."
His voice was low, carrying emotions too complicated to name, yet steady all the same.
"I want to seize this chance and lock down the Police Force completely. You know what's happening in Konoha. It's time we made our stance clear—and we'll do it in the name of the Police Force."
"I know. Of course I know. Danzō, that filthy bastard…"
The eye exposed beneath Kuu's hood gleamed with excitement.
"No matter the reason, I told you I'd help. And if this time I also get to strike at Danzō, then naturally I'll go all in."
…
Inside the ANBU Minister's office, Ayame entered carrying a document.
"The Hokage sent this for you, Minister."
Hikaru stood by the window, gazing out at the Hokage Rock in the distance.
He did not react much to her presence, nor to her words.
Because he had long since expected this outcome.
If Hiruzen wanted to change anything, there was only one path left to him.
He had to meet Hikaru.
He had to sit down with him and hammer out terms.
Hiruzen did not dare act rashly, because he knew that if he made a move against the newspaper now, the whole situation would become irreparable.
And if he did nothing—if he simply tried to use his own newly established paper to wage a propaganda war against Hikaru—then the likely result would be a humiliating mess.
He had no way to turn the tide.
At this point, the only thing Hiruzen could do was meet Hikaru—and meet those gathered clan heads and jōnin as well.
But Hikaru now held the initiative.
There was no reason for him to rush.
Ayame seemed to understand that too. She set the document on the desk, then walked over to his side.
"What are you thinking about?" she asked softly. "The Hokage's side… or the Uchiha's?"
"There's not really much to think about on either side, is there?" Hikaru said with a faint smile. "I already know how things will end with the Hokage. As for the Uchiha…"
He trailed off there and said nothing more.
Ayame understood perfectly.
The Uchiha had already been given every chance. If they still failed to rise to the occasion, then they truly would be beyond saving.
To be honest, she did not find Hikaru's attitude strange at all. If anything, she sometimes wondered whether he was being too merciful to the Uchiha because of Saya.
But she never said such things aloud.
Even Senju Shōma had remained silent on Hikaru's decisions—though part of that, admittedly, came from not fully understanding the situation.
Still, Ayame believed that even if Shōma did understand, it would not change anything.
Because the Senju clan now belonged to Hikaru in the truest sense.
Everyone in the clan knew he was the ANBU Minister.
And no one doubted anymore that only he could lead the clan into a new age of strength.
So no matter what he decided, even if others could not understand it now, they would never openly oppose his will.
In a way, his standing within the clan was already approaching what Hashirama and Tobirama had once held.
"When are you going to meet him?" Ayame tilted her head and asked. "The Hokage must be desperate by now. If he panics, things could get ugly."
"He won't." Hikaru shook his head lightly. "He knows he has to be patient now. And even if he tries to meet those clan heads first, I doubt he'll get very far."
Hikaru knew full well that if he kept refusing to appear, Hiruzen would not simply sit there and wait to die.
But unfortunately for Hiruzen, Hikaru had already told Uchiha Shin's allies to hold the line and say nothing until after his private meeting with the Third.
Shin was no fool. He knew perfectly well that this time, they were being used as the spearhead.
They would be the first wave.
The true duel would happen between Hikaru and Hiruzen.
But he did not mind.
He understood that if they did not stand up now, they would simply die quietly later.
And once they chose to move, there was no turning back.
Fence-sitters always ended the worst.
None of them were fools. They all understood that much.
For her part, Ayame only thought on that briefly before she understood.
Even so, she still felt that leaving Hiruzen hanging like this was risky.
But she let it go.
Compared to that, she had a more important question.
"How far are we taking this, Minister?"
In other words: how far was Hikaru planning to push Hiruzen?
That the Third would not be forced out altogether—she had already gotten that answer from him, though she did not fully understand why.
But not forcing him out did not mean he could escape without paying a heavy price.
This was a power struggle in the truest sense.
"Honestly, I haven't completely decided yet. Some departments would be useless to me even if I seized them."
Hikaru turned and looked at her, a relaxed smile on his face.
He really had given that question serious thought.
But the more he thought about it, the less he found anything he absolutely needed to take.
The Police Force, if fully secured, would be terrifying in its usefulness.
From the perspective of his past life, it was effectively the equivalent of a combined police and internal security force—one that could manage both civilians and shinobi.
And if properly controlled, that kind of institution was worth more than gold.
As for the ANBU, in modern terms, it was closer to something like an internal federal intelligence and special operations force.
Root, meanwhile, was practically a rogue black-ops arm.
Now that Root had rotted to the core, even if Hiruzen wanted to rebuild it, that would take time.
That meant part of Root's former authority would naturally begin shifting toward the ANBU.
Hikaru did not even need to fight for that.
It would come to him on its own.
And Danzō had offended far too many people this time.
Forget everything else—Administration and Interrogation had both begun drifting away from Hiruzen already.
And the funny part was that Hiruzen could not stop it.
Shikaku Nara saw too far ahead.
Minato Namikaze was still alive.
Under those conditions, the smartest people in Konoha naturally knew which direction the wind was blowing.
"So really," Hikaru said with a small laugh, "I'm not even sure what I should be asking for."
Then he paused.
A thought struck him.
He slowly touched his chin.
"What is it?" Ayame asked curiously.
"I just figured out what I want."
A smile spread across his face.
"What do you think—if I demand the Medical Department, do you think Hiruzen will cough up blood on the spot?"
…
Below the Hokage Building, the crowd had only grown larger.
For Konoha, this was a day of suffocating paralysis.
Almost everyone had put aside whatever work they had been doing and come here instead.
They were waiting.
Waiting for an answer.
Waiting for the Hokage to give them an answer.
But as time dragged on, the Hokage Building remained silent.
That silence was beginning to turn everyone's dissatisfaction into something sharper.
Hidden among the crowd, Uchiha Fugaku stood without a word.
A black eyepatch covered one eye as he gazed at the clan heads and jōnin at the front.
Today's events had caught him completely off guard.
But if he was being honest, there was a part of him that was pleased.
After all, this was Konoha tearing itself apart.
Dog biting dog.
He hated Danzō.
He hated Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Orochimaru had attacked him, and Hiruzen had let Orochimaru go.
That was something Fugaku could neither accept nor forgive.
As for Danzō—his relentless attacks on the Uchiha had long since made Fugaku despise him to the bone.
After reading the report, Fugaku had become more convinced than ever that if not for Hiruzen's indulgence toward both Orochimaru and Danzō, those experiments would never have happened.
And if not for their ever-growing ambition, Orochimaru would never have dared attack him.
Yet for the sake of his own image—for the sake of displaying some pathetic sentimentality—Hiruzen had released Orochimaru right under everyone's noses.
That was not just contempt for him.
It was contempt for the entire Uchiha clan.
Worse still, since losing one eye, the restlessness within the clan had only intensified.
In such a short time, those people had already seized control of two Police Force squads.
More troubling still, members of the clan had begun disappearing.
Fugaku desperately wanted to move against Uchiha Shin.
But Shin's standing within the clan was growing by the day, and Fugaku had no evidence he could use against him.
So he did not dare act rashly.
Because he knew it might trigger an even greater crisis.
Stacked together, all these matters had pushed Fugaku's already unstable mentality further and further out of balance.
At this point, he truly wanted every one of Hiruzen's faction to die.
Because of them, he had lost a Mangekyō Sharingan.
Because of them, he had fallen into this state.
"Clan Head, it's getting late. Should we return for now and come back later?" one of the Uchiha beside him asked quietly.
"No need. Something this interesting isn't something I intend to miss," Fugaku said coldly.
But the moment the words left his mouth, his expression changed.
Because he saw Uchiha Shin approaching—
with Uchiha Kuu—
and two other Uchiha squad leaders he didn't recognize.
And that could only mean one thing.
In the mere few hours he had been standing here—
he had lost the Police Force completely.
…
Uchiha Fugaku had no idea what had happened.
But he knew one thing with certainty.
Even if he went over there and demanded answers, he would get none.
More importantly, he now understood that besides the title of clan head—
he truly had nothing left.
The loss of the three squad leaders dealt him a blow beyond words.
And Hiruzen Sarutobi, meanwhile, had suffered a blow just as severe.
At that moment, Hiruzen sat in the Hokage's office under a dark expression.
The room was thick with smoke.
He silently drew on his pipe, his gaze unfocused as he stared at the portraits of the First and Second Hokage hanging on the wall.
No one knew what was running through his mind.
Only when his eyes finally rested on the portrait of the Fourth Hokage—Minato Namikaze—did his gaze sharpen.
"You really were something, weren't you?" he murmured inwardly. "Even after leaving, you managed to leave behind an opponent this troublesome."
By now, Hiruzen had pieced it all together.
Judging by Hikaru's pace and trajectory over the past year and a half, the boy had pushed him to the edge of the cliff step by deliberate step.
Most likely, it had all begun right after the Nine-Tails attack, when Minato entered Mount Myōboku to recover.
First, Hikaru had broken open the ANBU's restrictions.
Then he had maneuvered things so Root's restrictions had to be loosened as well.
And because Hikaru knew Danzō's secrets, he had almost certainly understood Orochimaru's situation too.
So he had probed and pressured Orochimaru little by little—
until finally pushing him into the abyss.
When the Orochimaru affair exploded, Hiruzen had been forced into a choice.
Then, after Hiruzen lost Orochimaru, Hikaru had rapidly expanded the ANBU—
and launched the newspaper.
Under those circumstances, Hiruzen had no energy left to deal with him properly.
The only answer had been to revive Danzō and rebuild Root to counterbalance the ANBU.
And that, Hiruzen now realized, had also been part of Hikaru's design.
Because with Hiruzen's limited energy tied up elsewhere, the leash on Danzō was bound to loosen.
And Danzō was a man with a long record of overreach, a man Hikaru had personally investigated.
A man like that, once given real authority again, would absolutely become even more reckless.
"Human nature. Power. Desire…"
Hiruzen repeated those words silently, his voice cold.
"So that was the calculation all along."
Danzō's excesses had driven the clans into fury.
And Danzō was his shadow. Everyone in Konoha knew that.
The clans' fear of speaking out did not come only from Root's intimidation.
It also came from Hiruzen himself.
They had been pushed to the brink.
And the newspapers, all this time, had quietly been praising the ANBU—and by extension, Minato.
That was the same as telling them:
You still have a choice.
You can still stand with Minato.
You can still stand with the ANBU.
Hiruzen bit down hard on the mouthpiece of his pipe.
Now that he had finally understood everything, he found himself feeling shock… and dread… and, to his own surprise, something like admiration.
Those emotions churned together within him.
Then, unexpectedly, a faint smile touched his lips.
"Setting all our positions aside… Senju Hikaru, you really were born to be Hokage. It seems Konoha truly does have a future."
At that thought, something loosened inside him.
He knew Hikaru dreamed of becoming Hokage.
And someone like that would never let Konoha split apart completely.
That boy had a plan.
He would keep things under control.
Hiruzen admitted it.
This round, he had lost.
But if that loss allowed him to truly test the caliber, methods, and capacity of the boy who might one day inherit the village…
Then perhaps it was not wholly a bad thing.
…
"Hokage-sama. It's been a while."
At dusk, inside the Hokage's office, Hikaru stood calmly before the old man.
Behind him were a host of clan heads and senior jōnin.
Hikaru's gaze swept over those who had entered with him. In particular, when he noticed Uchiha Shin had arrived with Uchiha Kuu—
and two other Uchiha commanders—
he knew the Police Force matter had already been settled.
He had always been someone who cared less about process than outcome.
And right now, he had the result he wanted.
That was enough.
Still, even as satisfaction settled in, he felt a flicker of confusion.
Because Hiruzen Sarutobi's state was… strange.
He did not look nearly as defeated as expected.
There was no obvious anger.
No visible anxiety.
If anything, he looked oddly calm.
"Has the old fox finally been hit so hard he's looped all the way around and decided to lie flat?" Hikaru thought to himself.
Naturally, he did not say that aloud.
There was no need.
"So you finally came, Minister Hikaru," Hiruzen said, looking up. His expression was calm—neither joy nor sorrow in it. "I've been waiting for you a long time. Weren't you afraid Konoha might fall into chaos?"
"With Hokage-sama here, Konoha won't descend into chaos," Hikaru replied evenly.
"No. It isn't because I'm here that Konoha won't collapse." Hiruzen looked at him meaningfully. "It's because you are."
That single sentence made Hikaru's heart jolt slightly.
But it also clarified quite a bit.
What a terrifying old fox.
No wonder he seemed so composed.
He had seen through a great deal.
That was not especially good news for Hikaru—
but it did not mean he had lost control of the situation either.
Just as Hikaru was about to speak again, Hiruzen cut in first.
"This incident has caused unimaginable pain for everyone here. It has also dealt me a heavy blow. It must be resolved."
He paused there, then raised his head and stared at Hikaru for a long moment before continuing.
"So, Minister Hikaru—if you have demands, say them plainly. I will give you, and everyone present, an answer you can accept."
…
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"
In Root's underground base, Danzō smashed every ceramic vessel in sight.
He was furious beyond measure.
He had never imagined that those people—those insignificant insects he had crushed so easily before—would one day dare rise up against him.
To be bitten back by creatures he considered beneath him—
it was unbearable.
What he found even harder to accept was that he had somehow become the key piece in someone else's larger game.
Danzō was many things, but he was not actually stupid.
He was arrogant, yes.
He had grown far too used to wielding power, yes.
But that did not mean he couldn't understand the position he was now in.
The moment Koharu and Homura had rushed over, told him about the newspaper, and about the gathered clan heads—
he had realized instantly.
He was in serious trouble.
Worse, from the way those two old comrades had come to him, he understood something else as well.
This time, Hiruzen truly would not protect him.
"Why? Why did it come to this?!"
Danzō's voice turned shrill as he screamed.
But Root's underground halls remained deathly silent.
At length, he forced himself to calm down.
The reason he was so unhinged was simple.
He had already received word that Senju Hikaru, together with the clan heads and jōnin, had gone to meet Hiruzen.
His instincts were sharp enough to understand what that meant.
The storm was coming for him.
And he had no intention of waiting here to die.
He had to do something.
"Men!" Danzō barked.
But before anyone could respond, a voice drifted into the room.
"Danzō-sama… are you thinking of making one last desperate struggle?"
The moment he heard it, Danzō's entire body stiffened.
He knew exactly whose voice that was.
"Senju Hikaru…"
He spun around furiously and looked toward the source—
only to see Hikaru already sitting in his chair, as if he had been there all along.
"To be honest," Hikaru said mildly, paying no attention to Danzō's expression, or to the Root shinobi already closing in from every direction, "you should really be thanking me for letting you live this long. For letting you regain such power."
He sat there lazily, smiling gently, as if this were no more than idle small talk.
"But Danzō-sama's mission has been fulfilled."
At that, Hikaru shook his head faintly.
"I already understood the difference between the Third Hokage and Danzō-sama. But today, I understand it even more clearly."
"The Third always believed Konoha mattered more than anything."
"But Danzō-sama? From beginning to end, you always believed you mattered more than anything."
At that, Hikaru tilted his head slightly, his smile carrying a trace of mockery.
"So the Third Hokage has already made his choice. And I, in turn, allowed Danzō-sama to experience what true power feels like."
"I imagine that leaves you with only one possible ending now."
He looked directly at Danzō.
And then he said the word softly.
"Die."
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